This one is absolutely unbelievable.
The crushing and helpless feeling of seeing everyone grow up and waiting for them to die is quite a pleasure. I feel happy as they die, as I just know that they've led a life without any regrets. The joy of that realization outweighs the sadness of saying farewell, and the tears that come out of my eyes are out of pure happiness. But sometimes I don't feel that it's enough.
I'm longing for something different. Aesir has always ended up moving on relatively quickly in terms from the perspective of the reader. What I want to see is such a despair from Aesir lasting so long that the payoff will be 10x more emotional than what we have as of Chapter 47.
Death by itself isn't a tragedy. What makes death in my opinion into a tragedy is the life-story of the deceased, how they lived their life, and how they ultimately died. Most of the characters up to Chapter 47 that has died lived a relatively simple and peaceful life as far I am concerned. That's why I wouldn't say that there's any tragic moments in the story. But there's one death I would say that almost fits the bill.
Kaeha's death is by far the most tragic and the saddest one in the story so far, and it isn't even close. Nonna's death for me was about realizing that human lives are so unbelievably short that you're already on your death bed before you know it. Kaeha's death for me was about realizing that some things are just truly not meant to be, no matter how much time and effort you put out. Her love with Aesir was always a love that was never going to happen. So instead, she had to make the conclusion that she can only make compromises. Having kids with Creius because Aesir told her to indirectly must have been such a painful decision, that I can't help but cry whenever I think about how she did all that, just to end up as someone that's only been a fraction of Aesir's life. While her final decade was definitely happy, it doesn't change the fact that she was ultimately a tragic character. But, that fact made her passing so much more impactful when she finally died.
What I yearn is someone who will completely and utterly break Aesir. A life and death he's involved with that's so disgusting, grotesque, utterly repulsive, that it will make him question everything he's been doing up until that point. A life that is truly tragic. I can think of some scenarios for this. Maybe someone he knows from Kaeha's bloodline gets murdered and killed prematurely, which would make him think twice about traveling the world. Or maybe someone close to him with a long life like Irene or the Rock Muncher will betray him, leading to him having second thoughts about whether or not it was right to leave the high elves to begin with. I don't know, just stuff off the top of my head. The point is that, with the biggest lows, you're able to get the biggest highs.
The pacing of the manga really wants to make you see through the eyes of someone who has lived for centuries. It's fast on purpose, but does it make it good? Yes. It allows you to empathize and feel what the MC is feeling at the current moment.
Ironically enough, us, the readers are the ones that are the most out of touch. Entire years and decades are passing by just with the touch of your finger. The reader is essentially God/The Titans watching the little people from above.
The world-building is definitely great. Learning about the world does not bore me. It is an incredibly detailed world with changing geography and politics. It does not feel as if the world is revolving around the MC, rather it is the MC that is slowly getting used to human society and the world.
One of its problems is that the story can definitely get difficult to follow. My biggest gripe is that they have nothing that serves as a calendar for all of the events happening. Frieren had their thing about "X years after the Hero Himmel's passing". This manga just doesn't have that for some reason. Am I gonna have to bring up notepad just to be able to keep up with the dates? We have the concept of a DD/MM/YYYY, but no calendar?
While most of the characters obviously don't have much screentime, it's not like you need a long amount of time to start caring for them. The fact that such a fast-paced manga can get you interested in their backstories should tell you all you need to know.
Would I recommend it? Obviously fucking yes bruh. I wouldn't have yapped this much if I didn't. Fucking read it. If this whole essay isn't enough to convince you, I don't know what will.
